


Just Let Me Explain

by reyoflight (itslaurenmae)



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Force Bond, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Grey Reylo, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, One Shot, Pining, Post TLJ, Post-TLJ but definitely pre-TRoS, What TRoS I don't know her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24276706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itslaurenmae/pseuds/reyoflight
Summary: Rey knew she'd have to answer him about what had happened back in Snoke's Throne Room someday - she just didn't feel like doing it this day."Just let me explain," she started.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 12
Kudos: 61





	Just Let Me Explain

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot I initially wrote back in 2018, forgot about, and never posted. "Just let me explain" was an option I took from a tumblr prompt. It's got Force Bond/Force Dyad vibes (before I had language for what that was - hmm almost like there was a direction we all thought this was supposed to go...), a bit of angst, and some light making out. Please enjoy.

**Prompt: “Just let me explain.”**

Rey knew she'd have to answer him about what had happened back on in the Throne Room someday - she just didn't feel like doing it this day. 

"Just let me explain," she started.

"Why? Why should I let you?" He shook his head, brow creased in anger. "I woke up and you were gone."

"You have to know why," she scowled. "My friends were dying. We saw them being gunned down. And you weren't going to do anything to stop it!" She was trying not to holler at him and failing.

Through a stiff upper lip, he responded, "You don't know that."

She cast an angry look of doubt upon him. "Somehow, Ben…” she trailed off, breaking eye contact with him. “I just don't think you had any plans to help me save them.” 

She steeled herself and glanced back in his direction. “I saw the look on your face, after we killed the guards. You were looking at Snoke's throne like it was holy, like it was sacred. I could sense you wanted it. You were too busy being in awe of yourself to even consider that there were other people still out there," she gulped, voice wavering, "dying." 

He was resolute in his silence, though she sensed the anger boiling up inside of him. Rey took a step toward him, not backing down. She was going to get through to him.

"Your mother was on those transports, Ben," she glared. "Did you not know?” Her gaze narrowed, needling him. “Did you not care?" Her voice broke, and with it, her resolve to not shed tears in his presence this time.

_ Why was it that every time they talked, her heart burned and tears ran down her face? She never cried as much as she did when she was talking to Kylo Ren. _

He didn't have a good answer for her, so he told her the truth. "I was overcome - by you, by me - by what we did in that room." He focused intently on her and shook his head. "I didn't have thought for anything else, Rey."

She wanted to scream at him, to call him a liar - a snake, a monster - but she knew, somehow, profoundly, that he was telling the truth.

"I still want the past dead." He took a step toward her. "There's nothing left for me there. There's now - only now. And on. My past doesn't have the answers.” He shifted his weight. “And my mother may love me, but that doesn't change what I want."

"And what is that, Ben?" Rey asked, indignant, looking up at him through damp eyelashes. 

He should have said power. He should have said control. He should have said ruling, he should have said mastery - those were the easy answers. He should have said anything other than what came out - "Peace." _You._ Unspoken.

Immediately, Rey frowned, searching his face for an explanation.

"And you thought that running off with me would bring you that?" Her voice was wry, tears still drying on her face.

_Yes_ , he wanted to say, but she wasn't done talking, so he didn't.

"You really are selfish, then." She cast her eyes down and shook her head in bewilderment; once again disappointed in him, baffled by his idea of morality. "You, of all people," she paused and bit her lip, shaking her head in disappointment. "You should know that your decisions don't only affect you."

"You misunderstand," he said, taking a step closer to her. He needed to make her see.

"Everything I've done in my life, I've done for someone else." He loomed large above her, a shadow casting itself over her, enveloping hers, but she wasn’t afraid. "I left my parents when I was a child - for them - because they were scared. I trained with Luke - for Luke, for them. I tried to be a good padawan under my uncle - for Luke. For them. I ran away to train with Snoke because I wanted to live up to my grandfather's legacy. I wanted Darth Vader's strength, to be a vessel for his power, not my own. I killed my father to prove that to Snoke. I took command of the First Order to show Hux I could." 

It was a laundry list of causes and effects, of choice and consequence, of his decisions and damnation.

He took another step closer to her, casting his eyes down to meet hers. When she looked up at him, she saw a storm brewing behind them.

"The only selfless thing I've ever done was offer you my hand that day, Rey."

Wordlessly, she blinked back; unable to move, unable even to breathe.

"I fought alongside you, I faced my Master, and I killed him because of you. Because of what you are to me. Because of us. Because I wanted to be free." His brow furrowed as his voice remained unshaken. "Do you really think I would have done that if all I was after was power for myself?" 

He hadn’t realized it, but in his speaking, he’d begun to reach for her. He let his hand fall, feeling foolish. There was no way she was going to believe him, but he couldn't stop telling her. 

Every time they spoke, every time he told her the truth, it forged cracks in the whole facade and he felt it crumbling down. He should be angry at her for that, he should feel afraid, he should feel ashamed or terrified… at least, that’s what Snoke would have told him he should feel, but that wasn’t it at all. 

These conversations burrowed holes into the dam he shielded his emotions behind, and there was no way to stop it now. What he was beginning to feel was _freedom_. 

He’d gone so long being told that he was too much, or not enough, and that he needed to posture and project and harden himself to get the things that he wanted. But then there was her. _The girl._ And here she was, small in stature but large in his mind, larger in his heart, in the very core of his being. She’d never said it with her own words, but he knew, somewhere deep inside the innermost parts of himself, that she wasn’t afraid of him - of all of him - his darkness and his anger and his pain... they were all things she was undaunted by, things she wouldn’t run from. Likely because she harbored all of those things inside of herself, too… he’d seen glimpses of it the few times they’d touched. She was his light, and cast a shadow of her own. 

He couldn’t dam up what had begun to be released. He had the choice to, but knew profoundly that he would not - not while she was here, and facing him with unflinching, stalwart resolve. He had to try to make her understand. He cleared his throat and started again.

"I couldn't have done what I did that day if my only care was for myself. It defied all logic, all my training.” He shifted his shoulders. “You defy all the things I thought I wanted.” 

He swallowed, letting out a heavy breath. The scared boy inside of him told him to turn his face and walk away, but the man he’d become took a step toward her. 

“You and me,” he motioned to the space between them. “You and me are the reason I made the decisions I want to make. I do that now, want to do that now. With you by my side." He was speaking lowly, reverently, confessing to her - as if she was his best shot at redemption.

He was standing right in front of her now, solid and real.

"You say you know there is conflict in me. And it's true, there always has been." He tenderly reached out his hand and touched her face. “There’s always been a raging current inside me. The only time it's ever been quiet was when I fought beside you.” 

He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. “Always a struggle, always a war - between me, myself… what I wanted, what was expected of me, what others wanted for me.” 

He saw all of their faces in his mind’s eye, sharing them with her through the bond - Snoke, his parents, Luke, his own boyhood self. They faded away as he lowered his voice. “The only time I've ever known peace has been by your side, Rey.” He stopped moving his fingers then, his thumb still on her cheekbone, his fingers reaching, tucking behind the nape of her neck.

“That's why I asked you to be with me. Not because I wanted power or ultimate control or whatever it was you think I wanted - but because I want to feel that way all the time." 

All of the air went out of the room. 

He sounded so young to her then - earnest, asking something for something simple, so basic a need as wanting to be seen, to be known, to feel a certain way. It was something she wanted, too. He continued. "I haven't felt that way since, and I don't think I ever will if you keep holding on to whatever it is that keeps you from me."

He'd sensed it before, and sensed it even now - some unnamed blockade she'd put between them since Crait. It resembled his Uncle and had the voice of his mother, a voice of Reason. He wanted to knock it down, to break through it and tear down the walls and pull the scared little girl inside from its depths and to safety.

Rey couldn't believe what she was hearing. She'd expected he'd say something about how he was growing more and more in power every single day, about how he didn't need a Master or anyone else, that he was completely self-sufficient on his own. But  _ this _ ? She did not expect  _ this _ \- this confession, this plea.

"Can't you see?" he asked, removing his hand from her cheek to carefully push a strand of hair out of her face and tuck it behind her ear. "Can't you see what we are?"

Rey gulped, feet rooted to the floor, butterflies in her stomach. Like a tree, but with her head in the clouds. She briefly felt an urge to move, to run away, but her feet stayed planted on the ground. "Balance," she admitted. 

Now it was her turn to confess. 

"I've only felt it twice." She lifted a hand to rest on top of his, sighing into his touch as he cradled her face. He was so warm. "Once, on Ahch-To with Luke, when I was first learning to meditate. It didn't last long though. I fell into the Dark Place right after.” She looked away, almost embarrassed. That was the first time she’d run to him - the first time she’d felt solace in his presence, comforted by his company. She didn’t say that out loud, but she got the sense he already knew that.

“The second time was the same as you. There, in that Throne Room. I've never felt anything like it." Her voice caught in her throat upon saying that, sensing that she was raising his hopes and should stop. She felt the heat continuing to rise in her cheeks, the pounding of her heart in her throat. She couldn’t let him close like this - couldn’t let him inside like that. He’d see her for the scared little girl she really was, and he’d fall away. 

"But it ended." She let go and broke away from him, shuffling a few paces back, causing his hand to fall. "As all things end, Ben."

He'd been holding his anger -his sadness - at bay as best as he could. He'd told her the truth, told her everything, and she was backing away from him, retreating, defensive, denying. He could let her make her own choice, but he couldn’t let her  _ not _ know. 

"Some things end," he conceded, flexing his hand before bringing it back to his side. "And some things are eternal. Ever-present. Relentless. The Force is one of those things." A step in her direction. " _We_ are one of those things." 

He began to recite part of the Jedi code, like a prayer. 

_ Emotion, yet peace. _

_ Ignorance, yet knowledge. _

_ Passion, yet serenity. _

_ Chaos, yet harmony. _

_ Death, yet the Force. _

She found herself whispering the words alongside him, like vows, goosebumps forming on her skin, the hair on her neck standing up. Like a benediction and an admonishment - the vibrations around them holy. Alive.

"Can't you see that you and I are the same?” He’d somehow moved close to her again. She could see the moles on his cheeks, the planes of his face split by his scar looked soft, subdued. “Darkness, yet light.” 

He reached for her hand, and when he found it, she didn’t let go, lacing her fingers through his, biting her lip. 

“Kylo Ren,” he squinted, the name losing its meaning on his tongue, “Yet Ben.” 

The shadows lifted - whatever had been holding him down in shame was washing away. 

“Ben,” he lowered his head, raising their clasped hands to his chest. “yet Rey. Me," he raised his other hand to her face, lowering his lips to hers. “Yet you."

Whatever wall she'd been holding up crumbled at those words. Tears fell from her face, not hot this time, but cool and easy and refreshing. She didn't stop herself from shooting onto her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his neck as she collapsed the small distance between them, lifting her lips to his. She let go of the fear that had held her back, put aside her doubts and her desire to appease - to blend in, to be No One - and gave herself over completely to The Force, the way she had on Ahch-To, the way she had in the throne room. She was kissing him with everything she was made of, with all the matter in the universe - hands clasped behind his head, her body rising against his. 

He hadn't expected that at all (reflecting upon it later, he’d been more certain that she was going to try to kill him than kiss him). Her abrupt movement took him aback, requiring him to take half a startled step to the side to keep his balance as he caught her in his arms. 

If there was a fleeting moment of hesitation, he didn’t remember it. His hands were on her face, in her hair, then quickly and securely around her waist, squeezing her as close as he could to himself. 

She felt like they were going to meld together right then and there, to fade into each other and alight the galaxy aflame. 

He felt the broken, angry pieces of himself melting as he kissed her, as she felt a strength and a resolve that had been completely unknown to her before in his arms. 

That's when it settled in again, the peace they'd both been talking about. It wasn't exactly a feeling of completion or perfection. It wasn't an absence of strife, or of pain, or a denial of the past. It was an acknowledgment, an affirmation of all reality, past and present - a making room for the unknown and the duality they each felt in themselves. It was a safe harbor, and they were the lighthouse. 

Breathless, they broke away from the other, but only at the lips. Their arms stayed locked around each other, foreheads touching - counterpart, redemption. They breathed the same air, felt the other's hot breath and body. 

That was when Rey noticed he'd not been wearing his gloves, and he noticed that all of Rey's hair was down. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can find me on Tumblr: @itslaurenmae


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